


I Got Somethin' You Need

by APerfectGrace



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Impala, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-02-06 22:29:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1874808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APerfectGrace/pseuds/APerfectGrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“My name is Castiel,” he replied in an unwavering tone, eyes never leaving the gun trained on him. “But you have a tendency to call me Baby.”</p><p>“Excuse me?”</p><p>“I’m your Impala, Dean.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I Got Somethin' You Need

**Author's Note:**

> Eh, I'll probably edit this later.
> 
> Update: Edited.

Dean stalked through the large, overgrown forest, fury emanating of off him in waves. His facial features were contorted into an expression of rage as he moved quickly.

_Son of a bitch!_

He had almost _had_ her! He had been so freaking _close!_ So close to ganking that awful bitch, just _seconds_ away from decimating her and ridding the world of her disgusting presence. But, as fate would have it, at the precise moment that he was about to separate her head from her shoulders she had simply vanished into thin air, leaving him bereft and incensed and back to square one. _Again_.

He and Sam had been after this witch for nearly a week now – they had first discovered her when strange murders had begun to appear in a town close to Lawrence – and they were no closer to getting her than they were when they had first got wind of her horrific, sadistic deeds.  It was infuriating.

So, she had disappeared on him, leaving him to hack at a nearby tree to vent his frustration. Once his anger had simmered down enough for him to think clearer, he had turned around and headed back towards the way he had entered the trees when he had first started chasing her.

For a while, the only noise that filtered through the air was the occasional rustling of leaves and sharp cracking of twigs as Dean powered his way through the flora, eager to get back to the Impala. He just wanted to get one over this crazy bitch so that she could finally R.I.P: Rot In Purgatory. Permanently.

Suddenly, a loud, metallic guitar riff broke the silence, accompanied by a dull vibration against the tense muscle of his thigh. Without so much as breaking his stride, he slipped his hand into the pocket of his jeans and pulled out his buzzing phone, not even bothering to check the caller ID as he flipped it open.

“Did you get her?” Sam’s low voice cracked through the speaker into the shell of his ear.

He viciously yanked an overhead branch out of his way. “No.” His jaw clenched at the word, a sour, unpleasant taste filling his mouth.

“What happened?”

“She disappeared on me, that’s what,” he said tersely, breathing hard through his nose as leaves crunched under the harsh stomp of his boots.

“Disappeared?”

“Yeah, disappeared,” he snapped back, nostrils flaring. “She vanished, she’s gone, she dematerialised, she Obi-Wan’d me. Is that good enough for you?”

He could practically _hear_ Sam’s bitch-face on the other end of the line, and if he hadn’t been so pissed off at losing her he would have probably laughed at his brother's reaction. Sure enough, a disgruntled noise filtered through the receiver.

“That wasn’t what I meant, Dean.”

Dean gritted his teeth, irritated at himself for his sarcastic outburst. His brother didn’t deserve his sharp words, but the disaster of letting a dangerous creature slip through his fingers had hardened the bite in his tone a little too much. “I know, Sam, _I know_.” The apology remained unspoken. “I’m just pissed, man. I almost had her.”

A soothing tone softened Sam’s voice down a pitch as he answered, “Don’t stress out; we’ll get her. Just make your way back to the hotel so we can regroup and start again.”

He grunted in response and snapped the phone shut, shoving it back into his pocket and increasing his pace so as to get back to the road lining the woods where he had parked the Impala.

That witch was going _down_.

The young woman that they had discovered earlier this morning had been her fourth victim this week. They knew that all four murders were linked because they all had the same inflictions: broken neck, two large, circular burns on the skin of the torso and liquefied organs. Sam had nearly retched at the smell when they had stepped onto the crime scene, and even Dean’s stomach had turned over. The worse thing was the look of absolute horror on the poor woman’s face; no one should have to be so petrified in their last moments of life, nor die in such a horrific way. The brothers had left the scene angry and resolute. They were determined to take this bitch out before she could hurt anyone else.

So, the fact that this disgusting waste of space had escaped sat horribly ill with Dean. His rage had him practically flying through the woods, the small speck of grey road in the far-off distance growing larger with every passing second. His teeth were grinding together almost painfully, his failure bitter on his tongue. Soon, the road was almost upon him, and the forest almost dissipated, giving way to the crunchy gravel of the –

“What the hell?”

He frowned, eyes focused intently in front of him.

He was a hundred per cent sure that this was the _exact_ spot where he had the entered the woods. He could have sworn that this was where he had parked Baby. He would bet his life on it.

Except, as he neared the line of the road where Baby _should_ have been in his line of vision, he was instead faced with an empty stretch of tarmac.

No Baby.

_What?_

Coils of confusion and panic began to worm their way through the rapidly decreasing anger burning in his gut, settling high in his chest. A sudden burst of energy hit his legs, forcing him to burst through the last few rows of trees onto the unforgiving surface of the road.

 _Definitely_ no Baby.

This was where she should have been. He was a hundred percent certain.

To most people, it would have been extremely difficult to be able to tell the difference in direction, but thanks to Dean’s honed proficiency in hunting, he didn’t need a map and a compass to tell him where he was. He could tell that it was here where he had first entered the woods, simply by the flora and fauna and sky around him. Ergo, where his Impala should be right now.

Unless… was there a possibility that he had got it wrong? Were his skills not as efficient as he was led to believe? Did he lose his sense of direction in the trees and come out somewhere completely different to where he had started?

He needed a sure-fire way to be undeniably sure that he was standing in the right place.

Racking his brain for a way to do this, he clenched and unclenched his fists in an effort to clear his mind. An idea promptly came to him and he swiftly sprang into action, turning right to march along the length of the road. Moving quickly across the tarmac, he hoped that he would soon be faced with what he was pretty sure should be there. Moments later, he was.

Yep, in front of him was that fork in the road the led back to the highway, peaked at the tip by a stack of eroded boulders piled against each other. Which meant that he was right. Which meant that he had been in the right place. Which meant that the Impala was _missing_. _Baby should have been there._ She should have been in the exact place where Dean had exited the forest mere moments ago.

_Except that she wasn’t._

Dean pulled his top lip into his mouth with his teeth, trying extremely hard not to have a fucking bitch fit in the middle of nowhere, but it was becoming increasingly impossible with every passing second. White hot fury bubbled up inside the pit of his stomach as he paced around in a circle, looking around for any signs that could shed a light on why the hell he was suddenly short a 1967 Chevrolet Impala.

“Where the _fuck_ is my car?” he shouted into the air, at a loss of what to do.

Where the fucking hell was his Baby? He had left her back there, _right there!_ He _knew_ he did! She had been _right there!_ What the hell had happened? How the hell did she just suddenly disappear? She was a freaking _car!_ Did someone steal her? Did someone think that she was abandoned and thought that they could take advantage of an opportunity? Or worse, did someone know that she was his and took her out of spite? Who would have the gall to steal his Baby?

Streams of questions whirled through Dean’s mind, and at the last one, the fury that had boiled in his chest seemed to seep into his entire bloodstream at just the _thought_ of someone laying their horrible, vile hands on his Impala. Hell would seem like a fucking _carousel ride_ once he got his hands on the asshole who had taken his precious Baby.

That car was his pride and joy; she meant _everything_ to him.

He was so mad that he couldn’t think straight.

Pinching his nose in an effort to dissipate the blind anger behind his eyes, Dean tried to mentally run through the last moment he was with Baby in an effort to try and track her down.

He had momentarily stopped here, at the fork. He remembered that. He’d stopped because he had lost the witch when chasing her. Then he had seen a silhouette in the woods so he had driven on a little, trying to peer through the cracks in between the trees to get a better look.

His feet began to move of their own accord, retracing the path that Baby had taken earlier. He had coasted at first, her engine purring lowly as he inched her down the road, his eyes on the moving body in the forest. Walking briskly as his feet mirrored the path in his mind’s eye, he was now almost back to where he had initially exited the forest.

So, what had happened next?

He frowned, rubbing his fingers against his temples as he walked. He had forced Baby to do a 180 spin to face back towards the fork before he had killed the ignition and shot out of the car after that creature. Yeah, that’s what had happened – he distinctly remembered the squeal of tyres as Baby protested against his sharp manoeuvre. He could practically still _hear_ the high pitched noise perforate his ears, and he shook his head sharply to clear the noise, marching faster.

As he neared back to the area where all this had started, he spotted the dark streaks on the ground – a series of black tyre marks of where his beloved Impala _should_ have be –

Dean froze.

His eyes, which had been focused entirely on the tyre marks left into the tarmac, were now fixated on the pair of black, polished shoes in the middle of the ground, haloed by the streaks Baby had left.

_What the…?_

He blinked several times, too caught up in the fact that those shoes were absolutely _not there_ a moment ago when he had exited the woods searching for the Impala.

Definitely not there.

His eyes didn’t move, _couldn’t_ move, only focused on those shoes, pulling him like a magnet. Like something out of a movie, his gaze started to slowly take in the scene before him.

It was a man.

He was well-built and tall, barely an inch shorter than Dean, and he looked… well, in all honesty, he looked like an accountant.

Dark, plain suit. Leather belt, brass buckle. Crooked, thin, blue tie around the open collar of a crisp, white shirt. Large, beige trench coat.

Everything about his fashion sense practically screamed _day job_ , and if this had been anywhere else, Dean would have brushed past this man without ever having given him a second glance.

As it happened, that was not the case, so instead Dean found himself scrutinising every inch of the man’s profile.

Adam’s apple bobbing underneath a strong chin. Five o’clock shadow kissing the length of a distinct, sharp jawline. Pointed nose in the middle of high, defined cheekbones. Soft, tanned skin. Thick, dark hair tousled by overzealous fingers. Full, chapped lips currently worried between strong, white teeth.

He’d come back to that last part in a moment.

Dean’s eyes fell to the final piece of this enigmatic man, and felt a jolt course through him as his eyes finally rested on piercing blue eyes framed by thick eyelashes, eyes that felt like they could see right through him.

He swallowed instinctively, aware of a weird, electric aura surrounding him as he stared at the man currently gawking around him.

He had the most peculiar expression on his face. He looked confused, dazed even, his eyes glazed over, like he had no idea where he was or how he got there. A crease nestled in between his eyebrows as he frowned, looking very much like he was thinking extremely hard about something. Dean noticed the strain in his neck as the man gazed above him, drinking in the lofty trees above him, turning his head to watch a flock of birds fly over them. His lips were still moving: rubbing and pressing against each other, swelling under the work of his teeth.

He looked so unsure of where he was or who he was that Dean almost forgot about his current situation.

“Hey,” he said, in a voice rougher than he intended it to be.

The man jumped, startled. Cerulean eyes pulled away from the sky to rest upon him.

As they settled on him, Dean felt like he had suddenly been doused with cold water. Something flashed in the man’s eyes, and Dean thought he saw his body relax and his tension ease, but even so he slowly raised his hands in a neutral gesture to show him that he meant him no harm.

“Easy now,” he said lowly. “I just want to talk.”

He just looked so… familiar. He felt like he _knew_ this guy, which was absolutely ridiculous, because he had never seen him before in his entire life.

The guy licked his lips, eyes darting back and forth across Dean’s body, drinking him in and analysing him. “Talk?” His voice was grated, deep, with a low baritone that echoed in every syllable he uttered.

Dean tested the waters, toeing a foot forward. “Yeah, talk.”

The man’s eyes immediately shifted down to his moving feet. He ceased his movements so as not to further antagonise him.

“You want to tell me who you are?”

At this, the man’s dark eyebrows knitted together, a frown forming across his forehead. “You mean, you don’t recognise me?”

“Should I?” Dean countered.

“Yes.” His voice pushed the word out slowly, a twinge of hurt underlining that single syllable. “It’s me.”

Now it was Dean’s turn to frown. “Do I know you?”

“ _Yes._ ” He sounded even more wounded than before. “Of course you do.”

Dean rubbed the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb, trying to dissuade a headache that threatened to worm its way to the forefront of his mind. “You wanna help me out, man? I have no idea who you are, and I kinda have a problem I need to sort out right now–”

“Baby,” the man cut over him.

“Yeah, exactly. I have to find my…” He trailed off as the man’s reply gradually sunk into his head, curiosity rapidly sparking into suspicion. His body tensed, wariness suddenly coursing through his veins. His eyes locked onto the man’s own, staring him down. “How did you know I was going to say that?”

The man’s eyes seemed to flash an impossible blue.

“Who the hell are you?” he demanded, biting down the stab of confusion mixed with something else, something that made his stomach twist unpleasantly.

Was this the guy who had stolen Baby?

“Dean,” the man began, and at the sound of his own name Dean pulled back into a defensive stance, hands skirting around his torso to the waistline of the back of his jeans. Goosebumps prickled his flesh and he suppressed a shiver that threatened its way down his spine.

“How do you know my name?” he asked, in a dangerously low voice, eyes never leaving the man’s face.

“I know everything about you, Dean,” he answered, almost peering into his soul with the depth of his gaze.

Dean had had enough. Every hair on his body was on end, and an unpleasant feeling rippled through his skin. He had no idea who this guy was, but he was about to find out. Fingers closing around cold metal, he pulled the hidden gun out of the back of his jeans and slowly raised it to face-level, pointing it at the man, whose eyes widened in fear at the side of the glinting weapon in his hand.

“I’m gonna ask you again,” Dean growled, cocking the gun and aiming it square between those ridiculously bright eyes. “If you don’t start talking, I’m gonna start shooting. So, let’s try this one more time: _Who are you?_ ”

“My name is Castiel,” he replied in an unwavering tone, eyes never leaving the gun trained on him. “But you have a tendency to call me Baby.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m your Impala, Dean.”


	2. Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was not expecting the feedback I got on this... This was honestly meant to be just a one-shot but I've had so many people ask for me to continue it that I ended up writing a second chapter!
> 
> I still don't know if I will continue this, or whether I'll leave it as it is.
> 
> Either way: Enjoy.
> 
> Cas and Dean are really fun to write.

Dean rubbed his lips together, the sudden urge to laugh rising to the back of his throat and straining against his mouth. He had heard a lot of weird answers to that question, but that one definitely took the fucking cake.

“I’m sorry,” he said slowly, shaking his head in an effort to force his voice to remain humourless. “I must have heard you wrong. For a moment I thought you said that you were my Impala.”

“Yes,” Castiel answered, upset at the fact that Dean clearly didn’t recognise him. “I am.”

“Okay,” Dean ran his fingers over his chin, his gun-wielding arm dipping slightly as a small grin quirked at his mouth.

Wow. Clearly this guy was riding the lunatic train if he thought that he was a _car_ , and if he was capable of that line of thought then he could be capable of many a crazy thing, so Dean needed to tread extremely carefully here if he wanted to make it out of this situation as injury-free as possible.

He traced his tongue over his teeth, trying to put a voice to his thoughts. “Do… Do you know what an Impala is?”

“Of course I know what an Impala is!” Castiel shot back, hurt melting away into irritation. Dean’s body tensed at the abrupt change in his tone, and the grip on his gun tightened. “It’s a type of Chevrolet. Yours in particular is a 1967 Chevrolet Impala.”

He stared back at him, his mouth set in a hard line. “And how would you know what car I drive if you didn’t steal it?”

“I haven’t stolen your car because I _am_ your car,” Castiel replied testily, eyes flickering down to the weapon in Dean’s hand and then back up again to his face. “I’m your Baby.”

Okay, that was a line that he never needed to hear again. “Look, no offence, dude, but you are definitely _not_ my kinda Baby.”

“I’m not your ‘Baby’, I’m your _Baby!_ ” Castiel shouted in frustration, the lack of recognition from Dean sharpening the bite to his words.

This conversation was rapidly becoming one of the weirdest, most uncomfortable conversations that Dean had ever had the displeasure of being involved in. _Ever._

On a scale of one to ten on Dean Winchester’s list of uncomfortable situations, this was definitely scoring a fifteen, at _least_. He was arguing with a man who may have stolen his car about the fact that said man thought he _was_ his car. If that wasn’t knocking the lever off the crazy scale then Dean didn’t know what would.

“In case you aren’t aware of this, my Baby is a 1967 Chevy Impala. Last time I checked, my Baby is _not_ a scruffy-haired son of a bitch with an attitude problem.”

Castiel huffed indignantly at him, his eyes narrowed in a glare that did nothing to dim the intensity burning in them. “I do _not_ have an attitude problem,” he objected sourly.

“You’ve got an attitude about having an attitude!” Dean retorted incredulously. “You’re wacked, man.”

“And _you_ are infuriating.”

“Careful, now.” He waved his gun pointedly, a smug feeling seeping into his bones at the fear that flashed in Castiel’s eyes when he did so. “You keep talkin’ like that you’re gonna be chewing bullets.”

He regarded him carefully. “No, you won’t. You would have done it already.”

As if to prove a point, Dean aimed the gun at the area next to the right side of his head and swiftly pulled the trigger. The bullet hissed past Castiel’s ear, the crack echoing loudly through the trees and making him yell in shock, his hands instinctively clamping tightly around his ears as they rung painfully from the noise of the gun firing.

“Are you _insane?_ ” he screamed, glowering furiously at him as his heart thumped erratically against his ribcage. “You could have shot me!”

“That’s kinda the point.” If looks could kill, Dean would be stone cold dead right now. He moved the gun back onto him. “Make no mistake; I _will_ shoot you.”

“Would you? Would you really shoot your Baby, Dean?”

Okay, this was getting really old, _really_ fast. Dean gritted his teeth. “No, ‘cause _you aren’t my Baby_.”

“I can prove it,” Castiel stated, a new-found braveness bleeding into his words.

Dean snorted.

“I can,” he insisted, “but only if you _stop pointing that godforsaken gun at me_.”

Dean made no effort to lower his gun, still keeping it locked onto him. “You’re telling me that you’re going to prove to me that you’re actually a 1967 Chevy Impala?” he summarised dubiously.

Jesus, just saying it out _aloud_ sounded fucking nuts! Why the hell wasn’t he shooting this guy into oblivion and heading off to find Baby? Clearly this… _Castiel_ was too many slices short of a cherry pie, and instead of leaving him to rot in his own insanity Dean was standing here like a moron humouring him.

“Yes.”

 _This_ _oughta_ _be good_.

“You know you’re crazy, right?” he told him.

“Says the man pointing a gun at me,” Castiel countered petulantly.

“Yeah, and this man is getting an itchy trigger finger,” he warned threateningly. “So start talking. _Fast_.”

“There’s a box full of 80’s rock cassettes under the passenger’s seat.”

Dean shrugged. “Doesn’t mean jack.”

“The trunk has a hidden compartment full of guns and knives.”

“Maybe I have a weapon fetish.”

“You were chasing a witch.”

“Congratulations, you know I’m a hunter. Bully for you.”

“The number plate is a Kansas registered plate.”

“So?”

“The wheels are custom made. Chrome rims.”

“And?”

“Black paint job. Leather interior.”

Dean chuckled sardonically. “Doesn’t prove anything. This just makes me believe even more that you stole my c–”

“You inherited me from your father,” Castiel broke in monotonously, making Dean hesitate for a fraction of a second.

“So what?” he said forcefully. “You probably heard that from someone who knew my dad, but that still doesn't–”

“Your mother died in the fire that destroyed your home,” Castiel carried on, his tone softening. “She was killed by the demon Azazel. I know this because I watched you as a small child carry your baby brother out of the burning house.”

Dean grew very, very quiet.

“You were huddled with your father on my hood, lost and frightened and without a clue about what was going to happen to you. Sam was gurgling in your father's arms, and your sadness was so cloying it made me weep. I felt so, so sorry for you, Dean. To have your world ripped apart like that… it must have been horrible.”

It took every ounce of willpower Dean had to force the lump in his throat back down, and it was a few moments before he trusted himself enough to speak. “You son of a bitch, how _dare_ you–”

“I'm not trying to antagonise you, Dean, I'm trying to prove to you that I'm your–”

“Car, yeah, so you keep on sayin',” Dean spat venomously. “But all you've done so far is piss me off and bring up things that I don’t wanna remember.”

“Remember your first job with Sam after your father went missing? It was a woman in white. Her name was Constance Welch.”

It was such a drastic change of topic that it threw Dean off completely. “ _What?_ ”

“Constance Welch,” Castiel repeated patiently. “She discovered that her husband had been unfaithful to her, and in a fit of rage drowned her two children in the bathtub, before committing suicide by throwing herself off the bridge. She became a woman in white, and her victims were men who had been unfaithful.”

“I remember,” he said, his anger ebbing away as Castiel’s words sunk into his brain.

“She was trying to kill Sam in my passenger seat, but you shot her, remember? Sam drove me through the house because she couldn't go home; she was too afraid of facing the children she had killed. She had you pinned against my side, next to Sam, between my doors and a wooden cabinet. But her children appeared at the top of the stairs and she had to face what she had done to them, thereby ending her curse.”

Dean stared at him, stunned. He was so shocked he didn't even register his gun slipping through his lax fingers and clattering onto the hard floor.

No one knew what had happened in that house at the time when Constance was put to rest. _No one._ The Winchesters did not make a habit out of talking about the details of their hunts to anyone, and the only people present at that time had been just Sam and himself. He knew that for an absolute fact; he would have bet his soul on it. No one had been there but the two of them. So, no one could possibly have known what had transpired in that house _unless they had been there._

“How the hell do you know all of that?” he asked in astonishment.

“Because I was there,” Castiel said simply.

Dean's throat was dry. “No, I don't believe you.”

“I can name every single hunt that you've been on since you visited Sam in his dorm at Stanford. In chronological order.”

“No.”

“I can give you details of hunts that only you and your brother would know, and you know I wouldn’t be lying. You would know because the only way I could know these things would be because I would have to have been there.”

Dean swallowed thickly, every single nerve on edge. “ _No_.”

“The Wendigo in Blackwater Ridge, Colorado.” Castiel barrelled through his denial, forcing him to listen, _pleading_ with him to listen with his words. “When you first met the victim’s sister, Haley, you told her that you and Sam were rangers sent to follow up on her brother’s disappearance. She asked you if I was yours, and then she told you that you had a nice car.”

Dean closed his eyes, unable to comprehend what he was hearing.

“The dead boy in Lake Manitoc, Wisconsin. The house backed out onto the lake, and it had one wooden platform from the shoreline to the water. That’s where you found the victim’s father after she disappeared, sitting in a chair on that platform.”

This… this wasn’t… _couldn’t_ be happening…

“The phantom traveler on the airplane. The reason you were so afraid to fight it wasn’t because you were scared of it, but because you’re scared of flying. It’s why you drive everywhere; it’s why you have me, because you feel safer with me on the ground than you do in the air.”

“How could you possibly know all of that?” Dean burst out in disbelief, shock colouring his words. “It's _impossible_ _!_ ”

“Is it?” Castiel responded gently. “Considering the job that you do, Dean, is it really that hard to believe that I am who I say I am?”

“That you’re my car brought to life?” he laughed humourlessly, throwing his hands up in the air. “Sure, why not? I mean what the hell, it’s a regular occurrence anyway, happens all the time – no man, come on _,_ are you fucking _serious?”_

Castiel remained silent, and instead merely offered his right hand towards Dean in a slow, almost child-like fashion. Like pulling a limb through quicksand, he managed to eventually raise it palm upwards, but not without effort. Dean did not fail to notice the way Castiel struggled to carry out this simple action, like… like he…

_Like he’s never done it before._

Unlike beforehand when he had covered his ears after Dean had let loose the bullet, here he was having genuine problems trying to move his hands. Then had been instinctive, a reflex, something Castiel wouldn’t have had to think about because no one ever needed to think about reflex responses – he probably did it without even realising. But here was entirely different – his right arm was shaking and his left hand flexed in awkward, jerking movements. Frustration was written all over his face as he willed his fingers to work, eventually pulling back the sleeve of his trench coat and blazer in small, clumsy movements. Finally, he managed to reveal what he wanted to show Dean all along; a neat black tattoo across the soft skin of the inside of his wrist: KAZ 2Y5.

The number plate of his Baby.

Dean leant down against his knees, breathing in deeply. He felt like he was going to black out.

“You had a car accident, with your father and Sam. It nearly killed you all, and it nearly killed me too. Remember? The trucker that was possessed? I was in such bad shape, I… I didn’t think that I was salvageable. And you… you pieced me back together. Bit by bit, every day in Bobby’s junkyard, you hammered out my dents and restructured my roof and –”

Dean didn’t know whether to laugh hysterically or cry uncontrollably.

“– when you found out about your father, you took your anger and grief out on me,” Castiel said quietly, unable to stop the torrent of words falling from his mouth because he so badly needed Dean to believe him.

Dean’s face contorted into an expression of pain, and Castiel knew he should stop, _wanted_ to stop because he couldn’t bear that look on Dean’s face, but he couldn’t seem to control his mouth, like now he had begun he needed to finish what he had started. “You were upset, so riddled with pain and fury and the sun was bearing down on you and you just picked up that crowbar –”

“Castiel, stop,” Dean whispered, the memories of that time stirring forgotten feelings that he desperately didn’t want to feel.

“– Sam didn’t understand and all those feelings were burning through you and you just needed –”

“I said _stop!_ ”

“– a way to release and you just let me have it, and I don’t blame you, I never did, I just –”

“CASTIEL, _STOP!”_ Dean roared, eyes screwed tight.

Castiel ceased talking instantaneously.

For a long time neither of them spoke, the only noise being Dean’s heavy breathing and Castiel’s nervous swallowing as the dust settled around them. Slowly releasing the death-tight grip on his knees, he finally straightened back up and looked at Castiel, _really_ looked him. The smoothness of his skin and clothing were reminiscent of Baby’s leather seats and interior, while the darkness of his hair made him think of Baby’s immaculate paint job. And Castiel’s eyes were as blinding as Baby’s headlights, plus he was as temperamental as Baby was, if not worse. If he were to be a car…

It had to be true.

The things that Castiel knew… No one could have known those things. Not other hunters, not Bobby, not even their dad. It was impossible. It was _unfathomable._ It was just so past the line of crazy that the line wasn’t even visible anymore.

And what he said about when his father had died…

No single person knew that. _No one_ knew that. The only person who knew that was Dean, because he had been all alone when he had finally broke down and let loose with that crowbar.

Like brickwork, everything slotted together bit by bit in Dean’s mind: the fact that his Impala was nowhere to be found, the fact that a man who bore a striking resemblance to her was now standing where she should have been, the fact that Castiel knew things that Baby had been present for, the fact that many of those things were not easily-discovered facts passed around by word of mouth, the fact that Dean felt like he _knew_ Castiel, like he had _always_ known Castiel…

There was no other explanation for it.

The tense silence hung heavy in the air, but he was grateful for it because he needed to just _think_ , just needed some time to process this unbelievable turn of events before his head exploded. Castiel simply observed him, catalogued the way he breathed in and out deeply, gradually regaining control of his emotions as he drank Castiel’s appearance in once more.

“I’m sorry,” Castiel apologised solemnly. “I should have stopped.”

“Yeah,” Dean rasped, his tongue heavy in his mouth.

“I just wanted you to know that I’m not lying.”

He said nothing, the weight of what Castiel was telling him bearing hard on him.

“Dean, you hunt things that people don’t even know are real. Why is this so hard for you to comprehend?”

“Because it’s crazy!” he yelled, regretting it the moment he said it.

“You live your life on crazy,” Castiel commented, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah but _this_ … this is something else.” He had the sudden urge to _move_ , and began to pace back and forth because for some reason it helped keep his mind from imploding. “Okay. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Okay. Okay, okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Okay. Oka–”

“Dean.” Castiel gazed at him disapprovingly. “That’s very disconcerting.”

“I just found out that my car is a fucking person,” he glowered at him. “You’re gonna have to give me a minute.”

Castiel pressed his lips together, biting down the retort on the tip of his tongue.

He stopped pacing and pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes shut. “Okay. Say… Say I believe you. You’re my Baby.” Just _saying_ it made him squirm.

“I _am_ your Baby.”

“Shut up and humour me. Say you’re my Impala. How the hell did you become a human being?”

“Honestly?” Castiel frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t know. I have no idea how this happened to me. One minute you’re running out of my doors, the next moment I don’t _have_ any doors…”

Could Castiel really be his Baby?

Even as that question entered his mind, he knew. It was weird and uncomfortable and surreal and unreal and absolutely ludicrous, but in a supernatural world, it made sense.

Like a light switch flicking on, it finally clicked into place.

“You’re my Impala,” he stated calmly, daring to believe it now he had finally, _finally_ said it aloud.

Castiel smiled, tension leaving his body now that Dean had finally acknowledged what he had been trying to tell him all along. “Yes, Dean. I’m your Impala.”


	3. Shut Up & Drive

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW. You guys are amazing!
> 
> Thank you so much for all the brilliant feedback :)
> 
> I think I'm officially going to turn this into a story *grin* Dean and Cas are just so hilarious to write!

Dean needed to sit down.

No, he needed to stand up.

He needed air.

Okay, he needed _more_ air.

He needed…

He needed a drink.

He needed a _strong_ drink.

He needed something, _something_ to deal with the fact that his beautiful, shiny Baby – _no, no, don’t call him Baby cause that’s just WAY too fucking weird right now_ – now had arms and legs and a brain and a mouth instead of wheels and headlights and seats and a steering wheel.

Oh _God_.

His car was human.

His car was _human._

His _car_ was human.

_His car was a fully-fledged human being._

If there was _ever_ a reason to warrant the excessive use of strong medication, this was _definitely_ it.

He had just spent the last however long having a conversation with his car – a legitimate conversation with full sentences and sarcasm and _everything_. The fucking crazy thing was that it – _he_ – was talking back to him. His Impala was _talking back to him_.

_Sweet Jesus Christ._

This was _a lot_ to process.

Dean actually felt like his head might burst from the sheer weight of it.

Okay. He needed to remain calm. Calm was good. Calm was… okay.

It was just another supernatural experience; that was all this was, just another day at the office. Weird shit happened to him all the time; he should be used to it by now. If he could deal with sadistic vampires and screaming wendigoes and creepy ghosts and lunatic people he could definitely deal with a situation where his car was a human Transformer.

Except that his car wasn’t Bumblebee - his car was named Castiel (Castiel… _Castiel_ , seriously) and he had legs instead of wheels and eyes instead of headlights and a trench coat instead of a coat of paint and he could walk and talk and… and… hang on… _wait a fucking second_ …

A random thought popped into his brain and oh-my-god-now-that-he-thought-about-it Castiel was a he, like a _he_ he, not a she, not a girl, not a female like he’d always called her – _him_ … the Impala… he was like a male… like a man, a _dude_ … _he_ was most definitely _not_ a she.

The fact that the gender his car had materialised into was the complete opposite of what he had originally assumed it to be confused him and upset him and threw him off all in one swift motion. There was nothing _wrong_ with Castiel being a male human, per se (and he said that in the loosest of terms, considering everything about this entire situation was ludicrous with a capital ‘L’), but he had always seen Baby’s streamline shape and soft curves and shiny appearance as more feminine characteristics.

Clearly, he was very, very wrong.

This thought instantly made him shuffle on the spot awkwardly, unable to quite meet Castiel’s eyes as he felt heat simmer under his collar, all the times he had referred to his car as a ‘she’ on the forefront of his mind. “So, uh… since you’re my Ba – uh, _Impala_ … I guess, um… I guess that, uh… that, that you aren’t a ‘she’, then.”

Stupid question. _Unbelievably_ stupid question.

Jesus, five minutes ago he was getting ready to blow the dude’s head off, now he was stuttering like a fucking idiot? And as if _that_ wasn’t bad enough, he was pretty sure that that was a mocking smile now appearing on the edge of the dark-haired man’s mouth (mouth… _mouth_ , goddamn it), which only made Dean want to punch the amusement off of his face and then rapidly change the subject.

“No, Dean,” Castiel said, in a tone that practically sang of _no shit, Sherlock_. “I am very much male.”

Asshole. That sarcasm was _not_ appreciated.

“Yeah, yeah I got that.”

He shifted his neck ever so slightly in an attempt to alleviate some of the warmth that had risen under the edge of his jacket. Whether it was from the fact that Castiel was a guy or from his unnecessary sarcasm, he couldn’t quite tell. “That’s gonna take some getting used to.”

Castiel regarded him for a moment, his head tilting a touch to the side. “What do you mean?”

“Well the fact that my Ba – uh… _you_ ain’t a girl, ‘cause I’ve always thought of you as one.” Wow, this was embarrassing to have to put into words.

Blue eyes remained fixated on him, encouraging him to continue.

“No offence,” he added hastily. “It’s just that you’re a very feminine car to me. _Were_. I mean. You know, your shape and wheels and stuff…”

Castiel’s eyes flickered. “I see.”

“It just that one minute you’re all metal and leather and engine, the next you got hair and eyes and skin.”

“Along with many other things,” he commented derisively, raising an eyebrow.

Dean rolled his eyes, the sarcasm in his tone sparking off irritation in his bones. “I’m well aware of that, Pinocchio. I’m not _blind_.”

Dark eyebrows knitted over luminous blue eyes. “Pino- _what?_ ”

You have _got_ to be kidding.

“Pinocchio?” he prompted, his repetition being met with a blank stare. “Pinocchio the puppet? I’m a real boy?”

Castiel blinked at him. “I don’t understand that reference.”

Dean ran a hand down the side of his face. “Jesus.”

“What are you talking about?” he queried.

“It’s a cartoon reference… come on, man. _Everyone_ knows that reference!”

“I’m not everyone,” came the flat reply.

Dean pursed his lips. “No shit. You’re your own home brand, aren’t you?”

Castiel’s frown escalated into a full-on glare in the space of 0.3 seconds. “ _Excuse me?_ Are you insulting me, Dean?”

Lips quirked into a small quirk. For some really odd reason, he couldn’t help but pick at Castiel; he rather enjoyed the effect his witted comments would have on him. “Quick on the draw, aren’t ya? Boy, if Sam saw you he’d – _fuck!_ ”

The mention of his brother suddenly brought Dean back to the bigger picture of what had happened, and he felt like kicking himself.

Castiel jumped violently at the sudden outburst. “ _What?”_

“Sam!”

“Excuse me?”

“Sam! My brother!”

“ _I know who Sam is, you as_ –”

Dean cut over him impatiently. “That’s not what I meant! How the hell am I gonna explain this to Sam? Screw that, how am I even gonna get _back_ to Sam?”

Castiel looked back at him, uncaring. “Walk?”

Dean glared at him. “I preferred it when you weren’t able to talk.”

“I wish I could say the same for _you_ ,” he countered scathingly.

“Unbelievable.” Dean shook his head, letting that one slide because he had more significant things on his mind. “This has got to be the weirdest day of my _life_.”

A snort burst out from opposite him. “ _You_ can talk.”

“Oh, what the hell would you know? Up until fifteen minutes ago your life was dirt tracks and oil changes.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes at him, pissed. “Insolence is unbecoming on you, Dean.”

“As humanity is on you, _Castiel_ ,” he mocked him, just as annoyed.

Castiel rolled his eyes, huffing.

_Jesus Christ, I’m arguing with my car. I’m having an argument with my fucking car. This is the single weirdest moment of my entire life._

“I need a drink,” he sighed wearily, rubbing his face and bending down to retrieve his forgotten gun. “C’mon, we need to get back to Sam.”

Castiel cocked his head to the side. “We?”

Dean tucked his gun back into the line of his jeans, straightening his jacket out. “You can’t stay here, man. You’ll just end up killing yourself.”

“Thanks,” he remarked drily.

“I wasn’t insulting y– _look_ , you’ve been human for what? Less than an hour? You don’t even know who Pinocchio is. You’re in no fit state to be wandering around by yourself, especially since I know what’s out there.”

His eyes clouded over with an unreadable emotion. “’What’s out there?’”

Dean didn’t really have the time to explain to him what exactly that meant. Time for short and sweet. “If you really are my B – my Impala, then you know what I do. What’s out there. What it is I hunt.”

Castiel remained silent, understanding.

“Ergo, it’s dangerous to be on your own, genius. I was hunting a witch before you appeared. It’s just… not safe. Besides, you’re my car.” No matter how many times he said that (both out aloud and to himself) it never got any less bizarre saying it. “Wherever I go, you go.”

_Talk about laying on the cheese._

Castiel couldn’t help the strange, warm sensation stirring at the pit of his stomach when Dean said this. Unable to ascertain the reason for his response, he merely nodded. “Okay.”

Dean raised an eyebrow. “Okay?”

“I… understand your reasons for wanting to leave immediately. I will come with you.”

“Um, okay? I mean, good. Good.”

“Good.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

Fucking hell.

He gestured impatiently, starting to head forward. “Let’s go, then.”

Castiel’s features suddenly contorted into a look of pure concentration as he realised that _let’s go_ meant that he had to actually move.

In other words, attempting to put one foot in front of the other.

Talking was easy, but walking?

That was a different ball game altogether, and it took every ounce of concentration that he had to work out how exactly to move his legs.

He wobbled precariously, straightaway finding balance to be one hell of a problem. Dean watched him struggle for a long moment, a silent argument going on his head as he fixated on the way Castiel bit his lip, his eyebrows knotting together as he lifted the heel of his right foot and put it down again, confused. He then shifted a small amount of weight onto his left toes, making the shiny material of his shoes squeak. Unsure of how to continue, he resolved in uncurling his foot, flattening both of them in an unstable motion. Dean spectated a while as his Impala (his _Impala_ , for fucks sake) tried to unsuccessfully work his new feet before he made a quick-fire decision and backtracked over to the unsteady Castiel.

Castiel looked up from his feet to him, uncertainty clear in those blue eyes for the second time since Dean had stumbled upon him.

He stepped towards him without even thinking about it. “You have no idea how to do it, do you?”

A flush crept up underneath the stiff collar of Castiel’s shirt. “I’m a car, not a miracle worker,” he blustered angrily.

“Do you… do you need some help?” Dean said awkwardly, really, really hoping that he didn’t.

Castiel didn’t answer and shuffled from side to side, lifting his left foot once more in order to put it forward, but his movement caused a sudden shift in weight, making him jerk violently and lose balance, careening straight into Dean, who would have had the wind knocked out of him if it hadn’t been for his lightning-fast reflexes. He caught him just before he fell over, his hand closing tightly around his bicep as Castiel’s hand shot out reflexively to grab the lapel of his leather jacket in an effort to stop himself from meeting the hard concrete.

The abrupt movement precipitously found both men’s proximity towards one another increase exponentially, a fraction of air now between the pair of them thanks to Castiel’s inability to remain on his own two feet. Dean felt his face grow hot at the present feel of Castiel’s warm breath softly ghosting across his skin. Trying incredibly hard not to dwell on it, he aided the guy in righting himself up again, increasing the gap between them once more.

“This… this is hard,” Castiel commented, exasperation underling his tone.

Chewing the inside of his mouth, Dean’s hands slid down to grip just above Castiel’s elbows and he took a step back to shift his _Impala’s_ weight back into the centre of his body. Once satisfied that he wasn’t about to fall into him again, he let go of one coat-covered arm and swung around on his heel, now facing the same direction as Castiel was, side-by-side. At the loss of the grip on his elbow, Castiel wavered precariously on his feet, his uneven shift in weight causing him to jerk into the side of Dean that was still holding him. With a patience that he didn’t feel and an odd gentleness that he did, Dean used his free hand to right Castiel onto his own feet once more, still anchoring him down with the arm gripping his elbow.

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Castiel bit out, frustrated.

_Me neither._

This was going to be a lot harder than he thought.

After a moment of trying to keep Castiel on his feet, only to have him bump into his side with varying degrees of forcefulness, Dean scrambled into his pocket for his phone, flipping it open and pressing speed dial. A few seconds later, the call connected and his brother’s voice came on the line like it had earlier on.

“Did you find her again?”

“No,” he grunted, from the force of holding Castiel’s weight. “I have a _problem_.” He cast a vexed glance at Castiel, whose eyebrows snapped together at the insinuation.

“I resent that!” he answered hotly, eyes blazing with anger.

It wasn’t his fault he couldn’t walk. He was a _car_. He didn’t know _how_.

Apparently, this didn’t seem to faze Dean one iota – he just rolled his eyes at the outburst.

“No one is talking to you, _Castiel_.”

“Yes, but you’re talking _about_ me, Dean. I’m _allowed_ to be insulted.”

“I will _allow_ you to shut your freaking pie-hole while I’m talking to my brother.”

“You are so _rude_.”

Sam’s confused tone filtered through the speaker. “Uh, Dean? Something you wanna tell me?”

“Yeah. I have a problem.”

“Yeah, I got that. I can hear your ‘problem’ from here. Who the hell is Castiel?”

“Sammy, it’s a really, really long story, one I can’t really go into on the phone. Let’s just say that I’m gonna be a while.”

Concern edged through Sam’s voice. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m just aces,” he replied acerbically, jostling Castiel upright, earning him an irate noise in response.

“What happened?”

“Nothing, I just got caught up in somethin’. I’ll fill you in once I get back, just don’t freak out if it takes me a while, okay?”

“Dean –”

He pulled the phone away and snapped it shut, effectively disconnecting the call and cutting Sam off mid-sentence.

“Dean,” Castiel huffed, hand still fisting the leather of his jacket. “That was rude.”

“He’ll get over it.”

“That’s not proper telephone etiquette.”

“And what the hell would _you_ know about telephone etiquette?”

“Just because I’m a car doesn’t mean I’m brain-dead,” Castiel snapped viciously, head leaning forward as he twisted his feet inwards.

Dean smirked. “Well, technically –”

“I don’t want to hear it! Just help me learn how to use these accursed legs so I can let go of you and learn how to walk on my own.”

“Impatient, aren’t we?”

Castiel threw him a sour look.

“What I don’t understand is how you can talk and insult me and roll your eyes like it’s an Olympic sport, but you can’t put one foot in front of the other, or use your hands?”

“Radio stations,” he murmured, his tongue peeking out from the side of his mouth in a gesture of concentration. He had lifted his right foot, and was now working out how to put it down again with the correct amount of weight.

“Run that by me one more time?”

“Radio stations, local networks, live discussions, traffic reports, music… it’s easy to adapt when you listen to it all the time.”

“And yet, you don’t know who Pinocchio is.”

“Let that go,” Castiel replied crossly, toeing his foot down. “I’m a car. I do not possess a vast amount of human knowledge.”

Dean eyed him as he spread his weight evenly on his foot. “No kidding.”

Castiel’s face brightened as he completed his first, uneven, yet correct step. Dean couldn’t help but laugh at the happiness spreading rapidly across his face, and even felt a small amount of pride for him for working it out so quickly.

“Oh, question? Why is your name Castiel?”

“Why is _your_ name Dean?”

“Dude, I’m genuinely curious. I mean you’re a car, how do you have a name? And why is it Castiel?”

“I don’t know, Dean, it just is. Kind of fits in with my number plate.”

KAZ 2Y5. Kaz. Cas. Castiel.

Dean laughed loudly as he connected the dots, making Castiel blink in confusion.

“Cas. That’s cute. I’m gonna call you ‘Cas’ now. It’s a lot easier than saying ‘Castiel’ all the time.”

He regarded him strangely, ceasing his attempts to move again. Cute? “If you wish.”

“Sure do, Cas.”

“Twenty minutes ago you thought I was insane, now you’re picking out nicknames for me?”

“Oh, don’t get it twisted. I still think you’re insane.”

“ _Thanks_.”

“Stop getting prissy and start walkin’. You managed one entire step beforehand. With any luck, we might reach Sam before Christmas.”

“You’re not amusing, Dean.”

“I’m fucking hilarious,” he snorted, unable to help but like the way he riled Castiel up. It was massively entertaining.

“Shut up and stop annoying me so I can concentrate, then!”

“You’re pretty mouthy, for an Impala.”

Castiel blew air harshly from between his teeth in an angered fashion. “I seriously cannot believe _you’re_ the one who drives me everywhere. You’re so –”

“Yeah, yeah, Chuckles, I get it. How about you try talking and walking at the same time?”

Castiel scowled at him darkly, the fist gripping his jacket tightening a little more before he lowered his gaze down and commenced moving his feet again.

Dean tried not to think on the fact that he was helping his car learn how to walk, because that was a whole can of worms in itself. Instead, he focused on making sure Castiel stayed upright, and hoped that he would pick it up fairly quickly. Sam was waiting.


	4. Brothers & Bandages

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long to get out!
> 
> It's taking a looooong time to get back into the swing of normality after GISHWHES, and a lot of my fics have been delayed as a result.
> 
> Without further ado: chapter four!

Sam practically wrenched the door off of its hinges the moment he heard the first rap on the wooden panelling. He had made his way from the other side of the room to the door in less than three strides, his face set hard and his gun secured in his hand before he had time to even think about it.

Three things were glaringly obvious to him right now, which only fuelled the anxiety coursing powerfully through his veins.

One: It was approximately eight o’ clock in the evening. Dean’s phone call had taken place at some point in the late morning, and he hadn’t heard from him since. All his attempts to contact him afterwards had resulted in being connected with his brother’s voicemail.

Two: He couldn’t hear the Impala. He always knew when Dean arrived simply by the purr of that engine. It was practically a part of him, like his bowlegs and scruffy hair. This time though… silence. The only noise that had perforated his overstressed mind was the knock on the door.

Three: He could hear two voices behind the door, and one was _definitely_ Dean’s.

He supposed that when it came to his brother, there was always an undercurrent of _oh holy Christ what’s he done NOW_ running through his brain, but this time was different. He had been practically frantic with worry, and was just about to come looking for him himself before that knock had interrupted his panicking thoughts.

Dean didn’t even get to knock a second time before the door disappeared, replaced instead with a freaked-out Sam and the glinting steel of his gun.

“Easy, Sammy!” he said lightly, pulling his hand back. “You gonna blow someone’s head off with that thing.”

Sam didn’t really know what he was expecting.

Broken bones, blood, demons maybe.

Maybe the witch.

Or a stressed-out Dean cuffed by the authorities.

However, he wasn’t really expecting to find his brother leaning against the doorframe, looking all hot and bothered with his arm around an equally flustered, dark-haired man in a trench coat, who was clutching him like his life depended on it.

“Um…”

Dean had a look of grim weariness on his face, like he’d just been put through an emotional ordeal. His grip around the stranger’s ribs was firm but relaxed, almost familiar.

The strange man on the other hand…

He was dressed in a suit and the sleeves of his overcoat had been rolled up to above his elbows. His left arm was slung carelessly over Dean’s shoulders, fisting the lapels of the leather jacket that his brother wore. His right arm hung limply by his side, and Sam noticed with a faint stirring of alarm that a huge gash ran down the length of it, the tanned skin broken and the spilled blood starting to congeal from where it was drying. The blood had trickled downwards, circling his wrist in a dark red bracelet. He was breathing heavily, like he had run miles and miles, and his head, until that point, had been lolling forwards on his neck.

When the door had opened, he had lifted it, and startling blue eyes had settled on Sam momentarily before he visibly jumped at the sight of the gun, causing a look of fierce annoyance to flit across his face.

“Am I going to have guns shoved into my face wherever I go?” he asked angrily, out of breath.

Sam recognised the voice. It was the same voice he had heard over the phone when his brother had rung him in the morning.

So, Dean had brought his ‘problem’ back with him. He wondered what kind of trouble this guy was in in order to warrant his brother carrying him (literally, it seemed) back here. A quick glance behind them showed Sam that the Impala was nowhere to be seen. Odd.

Dean was telling the man to shut up.

“I will _not_ shut up! I’m dying and I’m sick of looking down the barrel of a gun! I’ve been human for _half a day_ and –”

“Oh my God _for the last time,_ you’re not dying! Stop being so melodramatic!”

“My arm is in _agony_ –”

“Well, it’s your own fucking fault –”

“Oh, you’re no help at all–”

“Excuse me? Who’s been carrying you? The Blue fucking Fairy?”

“Do you ever shut _up?_ ”

“Don’t you tell me to shut up!”

Sam blinked stupidly, trying to process all of this, his mind trying to digest the flurry of heated words. Only one thing broke through the fog of haziness in his mind.

“Human for half a day?” he repeated, bewildered, his hand reflexively tightening around the handle of the weapon in his hand.

As if by a conscious decision, both sets of eyes swivelled towards the gun a foot in front of them. Dean could see his line of thought almost as if it were written on his forehead.

“Sammy, there’s no need for that, trust me. He’s good.” He reached forward and tipped the gun down, making Sam lower it. The stranger sagged in relief now that he was out the line of fire.

“Hello, Sam,” Castiel said, breathing a little easier as he addressed Dean’s brother. “My name is–”

“Castiel,” Sam finished for him, memory instantly clicking into place. “Dean’s problem.”

Dean smirked as the corners of Castiel’s mouth curved downwards in disgruntlement. “That’s putting it lightly.”

Castiel glared hotly at him whilst still speaking to Sam. “I’m not your brother’s _problem_ but yes, I’m Castiel.”

“Apologies.”

“None taken.”

“Okay, does anyone want to explain to me what the hell is going on? Dean, where’s the Impala?”

Dean gestured behind Sam, dodging the last question. “Remember that long story I told you about? You might wanna get inside, this is gonna take a while and I need a drink.”

“And fix my arm,” Castiel winced, bringing their attention back to his injured arm.

Dean sighed in a long-suffering manner, resisting the urge to clout him around the back of the head. “If you don’t stop whining, I’m gonna fix your mouth too while I’m at it. _Permanently_.”

“ _Try it_ ,” Castiel shot back scathingly, squaring up to him.

Sam coughed awkwardly, and suddenly the fight drained out of Dean. He was tired, pissed off, hungry and still adjusting. “Just shut up and get inside.”

Sam side-stepped as he half-marched, half-dragged Castiel into the dimly-lit privacy of the hotel room that the two brothers shared. He unceremoniously dumped his car ( _ha_ ) onto Sam’s bed, causing him to squawk in loud protest as he ended up in an undignified heap of clothes and limbs.

“Baby,” Dean grumbled without a glance backwards, heading into the bathroom.

“Took you long enough to realise,” he countered sourly, detangling himself from Sam’s sheets.

“Not _that_ kind of baby!”

“I know what you meant!”

“Clearly you didn’t. Sarcasm a new one for you too?”

“Are manners a new one for _you?_ ”

A low mutter came from the bathroom, and the sound of the taps turning on drifted into the air. “Sam, close the door, would ya? Don’t need anyone knowin’ our business.”

He dazedly moved into motion and shut the door, subsequently coming to sit on Dean’s bed opposite Castiel, who was examining his mangled arm with a disgusted grimace. It was taking a long time for Sam’s brain to come up to speed with everything that had just happened in the last few minutes.

“What happened to your arm?” He found the words leaving his mouth before he could stop them.

“He tripped over his own two feet,” Dean supplied from the bathroom before Castiel had a chance to open his mouth.

Castiel whipped his head around to glare at him but it was fruitless, since Dean was hidden from sight by the wall separating the two rooms.

“ _In my defence_ , walking is still new to me.”

“In my defence, it was spectacularly hilarious.”

Sam butted in before Castiel could retort with a withering comment. “You mind explaining to me what exactly you mean by being human for only half a day? What are you? How did you and Dean meet each other? Where’s the Impala? Why did the pair of you have to walk here?”

Dean emerged from the bathroom, his hands now full of clean towels and a bowl of hot water, accompanied by a serious look drawn across his face. “You’re not gonna believe me.”

Sam levelled him with a neutral look. “Try me.”

He stood over his seated brother, rubbing his lips together and trying to think just exactly how to address Sam’s flurry of questions. Castiel remained silent. “I met Cas this morning. I’ve known him my whole life.”

Sam eyebrows snapped together. “I’ve never heard of you mentioning a–”

“That’s because up until this morning, Cas used to be different. _Very_ different. He used to belong to Dad. Large wheels, black paint, steering wheel, and a great leather interior.”

Sam simply stared at him, perplexed and slightly worried.

“I’m your Impala,” Castiel supplied helpfully.

Sam burst out laughing.

Dean nodded to himself, expecting that reaction. Castiel remained stoic, and Sam’s laughter grew in strength at the bewildered and slightly hurt look on his face.

Dean moved over to set the water and towels down on the nightstand near the bed, grabbing a nearby chair and setting it opposite of Castiel, who was still looking at a laughing Sam, unsure of how to respond.

After a moment, when he saw that they weren’t joining in, his laughter dissipated instantly.

“Seriously?” he asked, eyebrows knotting together.

“Seriously,” Dean said tersely, dipping a towel into the bowl to soak it, wringing the excess water.

“Dean, don’t fuck with me.”

“Not fucking with you, Sammy.”

As that sunk in, he lowered himself into the chair to face Castiel. He reached outwards and firmly wrapped his hand around his wrist, the soft skin underneath his fingers heating his own rapidly in a way that wasn’t just to do with body heat. With a jerk that was harder than necessary, he pulled Castiel’s arm towards him, ignoring the yelp of pain accompanying it as he rotated the limb so that the wound was facing him.

“Do you have to be so _violent?_ ” Castiel snapped, wriggling against him. “That _hurts_.”

“It hurts because you decided flying across asphalt was better than walking on it.”

“It hurts because you – _ow!_ ” Dean had pressed the towel to his elbow, causing a sharp burst of pain to shoot through his arm.

“Castiel is the Impala? Like the Impala, Impala?” Sam questioned disbelievingly.

“Do I sound like I’m even remotely kidding?”

“No, but… the Impala? Are you sure, Dean?”

Dean sighed and released Castiel’s wrist, dropping the towel back into the water. He began from the beginning, relaying the entire turn of events whilst Castiel listened and confirmed certain things, adding a few commentaries of his own. As they filled an awestruck Sam on everything, from when he had left the woods to this very moment, Dean’s mind kept floating back to the last few hours.

Castiel was apparently a fast learner, and while he got the hang of his legs quite well, he still needed to use Dean as physical support. They had walked for miles – Dean was used to this kind of exertion but it had proved to be extremely strenuous on Castiel, who had had to revert back to leaning against Dean completely.

They had argued and bickered and stopped a million times, but they had always ended up walking, arms slung around each other. And all the while, Dean couldn’t help but realise how very, very aware he was of Castiel’s proximity to him: the faint scent of leather, the constant pulse of warmth emanating from his body, the crease between his eyebrows as he concentrated on walking, everything.

While he didn’t want to dwell it, he supposed that he was concentrating on these things because up until a certain point his car had been just that: his car. Still, he wasn’t quite sure about why the close proximity between them had caused his heartbeat to speed up ever so slightly, or why the knowledge of this made him sharper with Castiel than he should have been.

Sam had listened to the entire story intently, nodding thoughtfully with each sentence, asking questions if he didn’t understand something, and constantly rubbing his mouth with his fingers. Once they had finished, he agitatedly ran his hand through his head and let out a large breath, his eyes swivelling to Castiel.

Wordlessly, Castiel offered his wrist to Sam, more confident and surer of his body now than when he had first showed it to Dean. Sam drank in the tattoo on his wrist, eyes widening at the sight.

“Fuck,” he breathed in awe.

“You’re telling me,” Dean said lowly, leaning his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands together.

“I just… I can’t believe it.”

“You and me both.”

“I… understand that this is hard for you both,” Castiel broke in, “but this is just as hard for me, too. Until this morning I was unable to speak, to think, to move, to communicate or act in anyway human. This is all very new and unfamiliar to me. It’s a lot to handle. This is… frightening for me.”

At this, something moved in Dean, and shame coloured the apples of his cheeks as he glanced back over to Castiel, who was nervously picking at the fibres of his trench coat. Dean was being extremely hard on him, who was actually handling the whole _I’m-a-real-boy_ thing pretty well. Considering he was technically a car.

Sam suddenly stood up, walking over to where his jacket was and shucking it on.

“Where are you going?” Dean demanded in surprise, his shame slipping from his mind momentarily as he focused on his brother.

“I need to go for a walk,” he responded matter-of-factly. “I just need to process everything you’ve just told me. I’ll be back in a while.”

“O-Okay,” Dean answered uncertainly, eyeing him carefully. “Just… just keep your cell on.”

“Will do. See you in a bit.” He looked over to Castiel, a weird look on his face. “See you… Cas.”

“Goodbye for now, Sam,” he replied earnestly.

With that, Sam walked over to the front door and opened it, disappearing and shutting it behind him.

Dean and Castiel were alone once more.


	5. Wound Tight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I KNOW.
> 
> I SUCK.
> 
> I KNOW.

Dean gave one last look at the front door before turning back in his chair to face Castiel.

Sam just needed a little bit of time to process everything. That was all.

Hell, Dean had been privy to the information nearly all day and _he_ still couldn’t believe it.

Well, if his brother needed some space to think, that was fine. He was a big boy, he could handle things.

Most things anyway; this was a probably little out of their usual schedule.

Okay, _way_ out.

He needed to attend to Castiel anyway, before the idiot caused himself more damage.

He picked up the towel, wrung it once more and leant towards him again, ignoring the erratic jump his heart gave as vivid, blue eyes stared at him.

“Your arm,” he said hoarsely, gesturing for him to raise it.

“Are you going to tear it off like before?” Castiel asked him warily.

“No. Just give me your arm,” he said with a patience he didn’t feel.

Castiel must have been expecting him to give him a sarcastic remark, because he simply regarded him with a raised eyebrow, before silently offering him his arm.

This time, when Dean clasped it, it was with a lot less force and a lot more care. He manoeuvred it towards him, only this time much gentler than before. A silence settled over the pair of them as he worked on Castiel’s arm slowly, first sluicing the dried, cracked blood away from his wrist. He took particular care to cause as little discomfort as possible, but even with his renewed efforts Castiel couldn’t help small outbursts of pain every so often, causing Dean’s chest to pang with guilt every time.

“Cas, you need to be more careful,” he stated, rubbing a particularly stubborn spot just under the bone of his wrist, making Castiel squirm uncomfortably.

“I didn’t do this on purpose,” he hissed around a sharp ache that zinged up his arm. “You did see me trip across that broken concrete slab, correct?”

The memory bubbled up to the forefront of Dean’s mind, and he couldn’t help but chuckle at the recollection of Castiel standing upright one second, then _flying_ across the floor the next, a strangled yell tumbling out of his mouth as he stumbled and landed on his side.

“I see you remember,” Castiel remarked drily, nostrils flaring.

“You gotta admit, it was fuckin’ funny,” he laughed, rubbing away the blood trickle that had traced down the length of Castiel’s arm veins.

“It was _not_. It was _excruciating_.”

“Depends from the viewpoint.”

“Yes, I imagine that you had a _spectacular_ viewpoint,” he snapped acidly, flexing his hand and making the cords in his arm jump at the movement.

Unbidden, Dean’s mind raced to the thought of Castiel sprawled flat on the ground, trying to coordinate his hands and feet, propping himself up on his palms and knees in a way that had his ass bent right towards Dean, who couldn’t help but notice (even through the trench coat) that he had a very firm-looking backside –

“Look, man,” he blurted, cutting that train of thought dead and pushing it far, _far_ away, “all of this ain’t the point. The point is that you gotta get a handle on things.”

Castiel was inspecting his wound and gingerly picked at it with his nail, wincing. Dean slapped his hand away, earning himself a glare. “Don’t pick at it.”

“Why not?”

“Because it can get infected.”

Castiel made a noise between a huff and a snort.

“I ain’t sayin’ it for the good of my health. I’m sayin’ it for yours.” He had a bizarre moment where he felt like a parent telling off a child, and repressed a shudder.

“That’s easy for you to say, I’m still new to this.”

“Just ‘cause you’re new to this, don’t mean that you can be careless.”

Castiel jerked angrily against him, and yelled, “You don’t have to keep going on about it!”

“I’m being serious here!” Dean burst out, jumping up in anger and dropping his arm like a hot potato, bearing down on him. “You’re sitting here calling me an ass when you can’t even put two feet in front of the other! Have you even thought about the fact that you’re in a world that can _kill you?_ ”

Castiel glowered up at him, a tick working in his jaw. “Would you even care?” he responded hotly.

“What?” Dean said, taken aback. “What the hell kinda question is that? Of course I would fucking care!”

A beat of silence.

Then, hastily he added, “You’re my car, that’s why. Can’t be leavin’ you at the hands of some nasty son of a bitch.” He could feel himself flushing, and threw himself back into cleaning Castiel’s wound, flushing dark at the collar and wondering why the fuck he had to go and say something so goddamn stupid.

His car merely stared at the top of his head, his words causing the apples of his cheeks to tinge pink and a warm glow to sit in the base of his stomach. Had Dean looked up at him, he would have noticed the strange way Castiel was staring at him, an unfamiliar gaze on his face.

“I apologise. Thank you, Dean.”

“S’no problem,” he muttered, rinsing the reddening towel into the water bowl. “Stay still. This is gonna hurt.”

As softly as he possibly could, he pressed the towel on the actual wound, apologising even as Castiel tensed up and grimaced, hissing through his teeth. He cleaned the grit and blood away as quickly as possible, not realising that, in an effort to soothe Castiel, he had begun to swipe his thumb across his skin back and forth in a calming manner, rubbing gently much like a mother would soothe a child.

He became aware of what he was doing and froze, eyes firmly trained on Castiel’s wound and not even daring to look up at his face.

“That felt nice,” Castiel murmured in an almost dream-like fashion.

“Sorry, didn’t know I was doing it. Somethin’ my mom used to do,” he said gruffly, wiping the last bit of dirt away and dropping the towel in the bowl with a small splash.

Castiel’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “She would rub your skin better?”

Another memory bubbled in Dean’s mind, a warm, happy one. “Yeah. When I used to get hurt, she’d sit me down, clean all the dirt away, rub it and kiss it better.” The recollection of his fourth birthday, when he fell off the swing set, came to mind, and he found himself smiling.

“Are you going to kiss me then?” Castiel asked, staring him dead in the eye.

Dean choked on thin air. “Wh-Wha…”

“Well, you’ve sat me down, cleaned the dirt away, rubbed my hand… the next logical step would be for you to kiss me.”

Okay, Dean was _well aware_ that Castiel had _no prior notions_ concerning things like boundaries and human behaviour and fucking _kisses_ (he’s a car, he’s a car, Dean, he’s a fucking _car_ ) but that didn’t mean that it didn’t _completely_ throw him off.

He felt like someone just socked him in the head, and he was warming rapidly under his collar.

“N-No!” he spluttered, eyes widening in shock. “That was just – I was just…”

Castiel seemed a little taken aback. “I see –”

“ _No,_ no you _don’t_ see – dude, do you even know what a kiss _is?_ ”

“Well, no, which is why I was hoping you would show me–”

“No, just _no_. Not now, not _ever_ , okay?”

That was said a little more harshly then he meant it to. He could have sworn he saw a flash of disappointment in Castiel’s eyes, and suddenly felt a spike of guilt hit through him.

Which was weird as fuck, because he shouldn’t have felt guilty, he was just telling Castiel how it was, right? But then he felt bad that Castiel was disappointed, because maybe he wanted to kiss Dean? But then he didn’t know what a kiss fucking _was_ , and Dean could have just explained it and shut the hell up, but on the other hand Castiel  wanted him to fucking _kiss_ him and–

Jesus, he couldn’t for the life of him explain why he was reacting so badly to this.

“Dean, I… I’m sorry.” Castiel’s voice was small and quiet, and he suddenly felt like the biggest dick in the world. “Can we just finish with my arm?”

He should have explained. Instead, Dean’s mouth curved into one of those grins he wore when he was hiding something, and he just said, a little too brightly: “Sure thing.”

Clapping him on the back a little harder than necessary, he brusquely rose to grab a bottle of whiskey off of the table, heading back.

“You know how cleaning your arm hurt? Well, hate to break it to ya but this is gonna hurt even more.”

“What… What is that?” Castiel eyed the bottle warily, hands flexing anxiously.

“It’s for infection. Well, no, it’s for drinkin’, but when you’re in a pinch and you ain’t got much else, it’s good for injuries too. Just gonna dab a little on your arm.”

He grabbed a clean towel and poured the whiskey over it, soaking the material in it.

“Dean, are you sure – OW!” He screamed as Dean clamped the towel over his open wound, pain intensifying and shooting up his arm.

“I did tell you.”

“You asshole!” Castiel yelled angrily, swiping at him. His body was telling him that he wanted to hurt Dean, but he couldn’t work out exactly how to do that, so he ended up just pathetically batting at him instead.

“What?” Dean responded defensively, ducking. “I warned you!”

“That doesn’t make it any better!”

“It’s either that or an infected arm, so quite your whining!”

As if to put an end to the matter, Dean held Castiel back with an elbow while his other hand went to work with the alcohol-stained towel, and for a few moments the room was filled with Castiel’s yells of pain before Dean finally relinquished his grip and ceased, dropping the towel and reaching over for the bandages.

“Don’t get this wet,” Dean advised, wrapping the linen around the tanned skin as gently as possible.

“Whatever,” Castiel replied sulkily, still pissed and in pain.

Dean rolled his eyes, the pair of them lapsing into silence as he made sure not to make the bandage too tight or too loose. His breathing became a little heavier at the change in contact with Castiel’s skin, and the urge to rub it again rose more urgently, something he couldn’t understand.

Castiel had fallen quiet too, eyes trained solely on Dean’s fingers moving across his skin, and there was an emotion in his eyes that Dean couldn’t quite place.

“Look, let’s compromise,” he said in a placating manner. “You’re adjusting, and I gotta remember that. But I’m trying to look out for you, and you gotta remember _that_. So you try and keep safe, and I’ll try not to come down so hard on you. Deal?”

Castiel stared at him, obviously mulling it over. After a moment, he replied: “Deal.”

“Good,” Dean repeated, smiling.

The sight made Castiel’s own lips curve upwards, and he found himself pleasantly happy at the sight. But the moment of him asking him to kiss him suddenly resurfaced and he felt that weird emotion surge again and then he suddenly wanted to be as far away from Castiel as possible.

He practically jumped away from him, picking up all the remnants from Castiel’s arm and busying himself with tidying up, ignoring the bewildered look on the Impala’s face.

He was being a dick to him. He knew that. Granted, he was still trying to wrap his head over all of this, but he wasn’t the only one, and he needed to remember that. He watched Castiel cock his head at his bandaged arm, fingering the material lightly, and realised that his Impala had been shoved into a world completely out of his comfort zone.

While Dean was still having trouble adjusting to it, he supposed that he would have to keep a lid on it, if only to help Castiel adjust to human life. For however long that was.

“ _Dean_ …”

He refocused his gaze, starting at the almost panicked look now painted on Castiel’s features. All the blood had drained from his face, and he looked like he was about to faint.

“Cas? What’s wrong?”

“I… I feel very strange… Dean…” His voice was listless, and it made Dean’s heart thump erratically.

_Keep calm…_

“Cas, tell me what’s wrong.”

“I don’t know. Something inside…”

Dean felt hot panic bubble in his chest. “Cas, buddy, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong.”

“Oh God, Dean… I think I’m dying… For real this time.”

His eyes were unfocused, a frown on his face, and it scared the shit out of Dean, who hadn’t realised that he had jumped out of his chair and was now millimetres away from Castiel’s face, gripping him tightly by the shoulders.

“Cas? _Cas!_ ”

All of a sudden, a loud, loud gurgle erupted from Castiel’s stomach, and he jumped, clutching his stomach.

“ _Dean_ – Dean! What’s happening? I feel like I’m dying… oh God, Dean… I… I – Dean, why are you laughing?”

He was doubled over in laughter, a hand still resting on his shoulder, while Castiel looked up at him, confused and dazed and still scared, uncomprehending what Dean could possibly find funny at a time like this.

“Dean, this isn’t funny! I’m dying, my body is giving out, I can feel this weird pain in my torso, I’m dying…”

“You’re not dying, you asshole!” Dean wheezed, gasping for breath between laughing. “You’re hungry!”

“Hungry?” Castiel tested the word out, unsure of what it meant.

“Hungry!” Dean repeated, cackling. “You need food, dude!”

“I do?” he asked, bewildered, his hand still on his stomach.

“Yeah… shit, I should have thought of it when we were walking but it just never occurred to me… Your body needs nourishment. That’s what the pain and gurgling is for; it’s your body screaming ‘feed me!’”

“I think we should listen to my body, Dean,” Castiel responded seriously, a grave look on his face.

Dean fell about laughing again at the gaze on his Impala’s face. “No shit, Sherlock. Come on, let’s figure out something to eat, before you give yourself an aneurysm over another normal bodily function.”


End file.
